The Ann Arbor City Council will vote Monday night whether to repeal a local law that requires motorists to stop for pedestrians waiting at the curb to enter crosswalks.

With five council members co-sponsoring the measure — and an incoming council member also opposed to the law being sworn in Monday night — all indications are they'll have the six votes needed to ensure the law's defeat.

If that's the case, the city's so-called pedestrian safety ordinance, which was adopted in 2010 and revised in 2011, is finally going away after two years of community debate about whether it's protecting pedestrians or causing problems.

"I voted for this originally, I voted to tweak it, and now I'm ready to vote to repeal it — it's not working," said Council Member Stephen Kunselman, one of the sponsors of the repeal measure.

Other sponsors include Sumi Kailasapathy, Sally Hart Petersen, Jane Lumm and Mike Anglin. Incoming Council Member Jack Eaton also supports repealing the law.

Senior Assistant City Attorney Kristen Larcom worked with the sponsors to draft the legislation necessary to do away with the local ordinance and revert back to enforcing the state's Uniform Traffic Code.

The changes will be voted on at first reading Monday night and will require a second reading and final vote at a subsequent meeting.

The ordinance changes will drop the portion of the city's traffic code that requires motorists to stop for pedestrians both within crosswalks and waiting at the curb to enter a crosswalk. The state's Uniform Traffic Code rule would again apply, just as it did before the City Council adopted the pedestrian safety ordinance in 2010.

The UTC requires motorists to stop for pedestrians within crosswalks, but not those waiting at the curb.

Critics of the city's ordinance argue it puts too much pressure on drivers and has caused confusion and accidents.

Soon after the city began enforcing the ordinance in 2011, there was a string of accidents in which drivers who stopped for pedestrians were rear-ended by other motorists who did not stop. The city responded by installing flashing crosswalk signals at several crosswalks and clarified the ordinance language.

Those in favor of repealing the ordinance also argue it has given pedestrians a false sense of security.

"They think if one car stops, everybody else is stopping," Kunselman said. "It's just made it a much more dangerous situation."

Sharita Williams, a 20-year-old University of Michigan student, died in early August from injuries sustained after being struck by a vehicle in a crosswalk on Plymouth Road. City officials said it appeared to be a "multiple-threat" crash, meaning one lane of traffic may have stopped but the adjacent lane did not stop.

Council Member Christopher Taylor, D-3rd Ward, is among a minority of council members who don't want to see the city's ordinance repealed.

Taylor doesn't buy the argument that having a law on the books requiring motorists to stop for pedestrians waiting at the curb is a problem. He said it's still illegal to hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and pedestrians have a responsibility to not enter a crosswalk until it's safe, and the city's ordinance doesn't change those facts.

"I see no evidence to suggest that pedestrians will consciously put themselves in danger because of our ordinance," he said.

Supporters of the city's ordinance argue pedestrians — especially young children and people with disabilities or in wheelchairs — shouldn't have to enter a crosswalk to trigger the requirement for a motorist to stop.

Kunselman said if it ends of being the case that people will have to wait for traffic to clear before entering a crosswalk, that's probably safer anyway.

"The idea that a car is going to stop at your command is ludicrous," he said. "It's like the law of the jungle out there."

Kunselman said his experience with the ordinance is that it's "just terrifying as a driver" to have to figure out whether pedestrians are going to try to cross.

"We're all about pedestrian safety, but this particular ordinance was more about pedestrian convenience," Kunselman said. "We gave it a try. It's clear it's not working. We need to step back and start over."